Would a "longterm shapeshifting job" fit in a game so fashion conscious?

[Omedon]

Mild Endwalker spoilers, I guess... if we're still flagging those.

So I have a theory that our next job, or at least a future job is going to be a transforming tank job in the vein of the ancients (the whole "we can all do it, but it's rude to just do it out here") or perhaps like Lady Iceheart or even potentially tapping into the link between dragons and Ishgardians. Basically "the summoner of tanks" like paladin is the "white mage of tanks."

Anyway, theories on the loose categorizations of jobs aside, I got to thinking: The WoW druid often brings up the argument of being counterproductive to their transmog (glam) game because you literally take a form that just hides your personal look... but that often gets drowned out by the *relative* apathy toward fashion in comparison to FFXIV, which essentially cites glam as a straight up endgame activity.

I mean, there are ways to do it where "you're in X form while you do Y ability then go straight back to your usual look," but shelving that idea for a moment for the real question here: would a "you take this form to fight and stay that way until you turn it off," maybe even tying it to your tanking stance (like it is in WoW essentially) be welcomed or scorned in this game? On one hand "MAH GLAM," but on the other hand "OH I'M LIKE HERMES NOW?!" Which sentiment do you think would prevail?

We kinda have something like this with one phase of the Reaper rotation now, but what if they took it further? What if the shapeshift was persistent and longer term while fighting?

[CaptainCoral]

Honestly i would love that

[Eisi]

I would not like it aesthetically at all, however!

I think certain short-term transformations would absolutely make sense and should be in the game.

Summoner should be able to summon all basic elemental primals. Including Shiva, Ramuh and Leviathan that would make six in total - and the Shiva phase would be you transforming into and fighting as Shiva for a short while. We've not seen Shiva summoned any other way in FFXIV and I'd love it.

[dapperfaffer]

Would a long term shapshifting job work in FFXIV, probably not. It doesn't really work with the concept of what job stones are supposed to do lore wise. If your asking about it in the context of having a toggelable button that turns it on or off like Grit does for tanks the devs also could have done that with Reaper and summoner already if they were going to go down that road. But Reaper draws on the void being that basically possess them in order to transform for a limited time, and summoners play pretend that they actually summon the primal and not just a small iteration of it.
A shapeshifting job might work as a limited job like blue mage.

[Layte_Aeon]

So something like Morpher from Tactics Advance. Sure I'd be down for that. Even though that job had issues it was still favourite to play as.

[Syln]

I would love to see a Final Fantasy version of Wow's druid ! Now that's not the only option for a shapeshifting Job but that's the one i would love to see.

[LisSquid]

As a longtime druid main, I wouldn't care about the glam as long as the job was fun. Powershifting added a lot of nuance to combat that I don't think really fits with 14's combat design, though. It would just kind of be like a shell of an idea. Or like feral druid that I forget exists because it's sucked for the past 8 years.

A limited job, maybe, where you "steal" the forms of mobs and creatures could be fun.

[SturmChurro]

I mean, if we take hrothgar as a prime example. Then yeah.

[Raikai]

Mild Endwalker spoilers, I guess... if we're still flagging those.

So I have a theory that our next job, or at least a future job is going to be a transforming tank job in the vein of the ancients (the whole "we can all do it, but it's rude to just do it out here") or perhaps like Lady Iceheart or even potentially tapping into the link between dragons and Ishgardians. Basically "the summoner of tanks" like paladin is the "white mage of tanks."

Anyway, theories on the loose categorizations of jobs aside, I got to thinking: The WoW druid often brings up the argument of being counterproductive to their transmog (glam) game because you literally take a form that just hides your personal look... but that often gets drowned out by the *relative* apathy toward fashion in comparison to FFXIV, which essentially cites glam as a straight up endgame activity.

I mean, there are ways to do it where "you're in X form while you do Y ability then go straight back to your usual look," but shelving that idea for a moment for the real question here: would a "you take this form to fight and stay that way until you turn it off," maybe even tying it to your tanking stance (like it is in WoW essentially) be welcomed or scorned in this game? On one hand "MAH GLAM," but on the other hand "OH I'M LIKE HERMES NOW?!" Which sentiment do you think would prevail?

We kinda have something like this with one phase of the Reaper rotation now, but what if they took it further? What if the shapeshift was persistent and longer term while fighting?

I think the idea is nice... But it would - for me - get old really fast not seeing your original character in combat. The way WoW counters this on Druids is offering different cosmetic forms and whatnot. Unless, of course a Shapeshifter job would be the first mainstream job with a spell customization feature.

I'd be all for it, then!